Scholarship

Robert Whitman, Oliver Ellsworth Research Professor of Law, joined the UConn Law faculty in 1966 and was the senior faculty member for several years prior to his retirement from teaching in 2015. An expert in trusts and estates law, Professor Whitman has served as committee chair of the Donative Transfer and Aging Committees of the Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section of the American Bar Association. He is an active member of the American College of Trusts and Estates Counsel, and chair-emeritus of both the Law Professor Advisory Group for Trusts and Estates and the Society for Trusts and Estates Practitioners (New England Branch). He also has served as a Connecticut commissioner to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and was the founder and chair of People Advocating Therapeutic Homes (PATH), now renamed Recovery Research, an organization whose mission is to address homeless mental health and addiction.

Professor Whitman, who earned his J.D. from Columbia Law and his LL.M. from N.Y.U., taught Trusts and Estates, as well as seminars on Estate Planning, Fiduciary Administration with Tax and American Legal History. He writes in all his teaching fields. Professor Whitman also regularly produces continuing legal education (CLE) programs on a national basis for the American Law Institute (ALI-CLE). He is the founder and co-chair of the ALI Conference on Representing Estate and Trusts Beneficiaries and Fiduciaries.

The author of Prepare to Estate Plan (now in its 4th edition) as well as numerous other books and scholarly articles, Professor Whitman is frequently a featured speaker at conferences and symposia throughout the United States, including the 2013 annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, where he spoke about trusts and estates for an aging population. He serves as an expert witness in trusts and estates litigation and is a director of the Graduate Group. Professor Whitman has served as an advisor to the drafting committees of the UPC and UTC and the Restatement of Trusts 3d.